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Amazon Web Services

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No time, high stress, high turnover - Software Development Engineer (SDE) Amazon Web Services Employee Review

4.0
Jul 19, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Knowledgeable coworkers, high impact & visibility, ability to work with massive amounts of resources. Internal transfers are possible.

Cons

1/3 of the time oncall, getting paged 20+ times per day for issues that are often out of your control. Insane turnover, so that people who stay >6 months are some of the most tenured. 9 of 10 people turned over on my team in about 8 months. Because of this, the ops schedule is constantly shifting and doesn’t consider planned days off, to the point where I’ve had to reschedule vacations and plane tickets because no one could swap for that week. No time for documentation, and tribal knowledge gets lost when people leave. There is also little time for mentorship, which in high stress situations leaves junior engineers feeling unsupported and even more stressed. Managers are non technical, and care more about getting results, as opposed to creating robust systems or taking time to plan and act proactively. They would rather re-architect an entire system than move slower and build a well thought out one to begin with. That said, experience depends a lot on your team. My advice is to ask about operational load, work life balance, and project work before joining.

Explore other reviews about Amazon Web Services

5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great team when you have a manager and full team that works well and collaborates well. Stock is great. And you know when youre doing well, the pay increase is roughly the same as everyone else.

Cons

Low perks compared to other FAANG companies and most teams have high turn over

3.0
Jun 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Unmatched Scale: You get to work on systems that handle millions of requests per second. The technical challenges are genuinely fascinating and great for your career. Smart Colleagues: You are surrounded by incredibly sharp engineers. You will learn more here in one year than in three years at most other companies.

Cons

Work-Life Balance (WLB): Highly dependent on your team, but generally poor. On-call rotations can be brutal, and there is a constant pressure to deliver more, faster. Burnout Culture: The "Day 1" mentality means things move fast, but it also leads to high turnover. The stack-ranking and PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) culture creates unnecessary anxiety.

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